I don't believe that the majority of Americans want Trump's version of America.

I think Unilever has become kind of Trumpified.

If a business does not have a social mission, and the current guy in the White House says,

DEI bad, okay,-I bad. Okay, D-EI bad.

Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World. I'm Christian Guri Murthy, and this is the podcast

in which we talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their lives and the events

that have helped shape them.

My guest this week is Ben Cohen, who co-founded the ice cream company, Ben and Jerry's,

40 years ago in Vermont with his school friend, Jerry Greenfield.

Now, the company was acquired famously by Unilever in 2000, but Ben and Jerry stayed with it,

and they cut what sounded like an amazing deal to still give them quite a lot of independence

and the freedom to voice their feelings about social and political justice and all the causes

that Ben and Jerry's had partly become famous

for helping support. And they have run into trouble because particularly over their

feelings and their campaigning around Gaza, they seem to have come into corporate conflict with Unilever.

And free Ben and Jerry's is a campaign that Ben started this September to convince

Unilever to free the brand up for sale.

Jerry Greenfield felt he couldn't carry on anymore and has actually left Ben and Jerry's as an employee,

though I'm sure he's still a friend and close confidant of Ben's,

which we will try and discover in the course of this conversation.

So, Ben, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

Yeah, good to be here.

...